Saturday, March 9, 2013

The father of youth who said he was raped by Malaysian opposition leader says Najib’s office was responsible writes Asia Sentinel.
The father of the youth who accused Malaysian Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy in 2008 apologized to Anwar at a press conference Friday and said the plot to have Anwar arrested was cooked up in the office of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.
Azlan Mohd Lazim, 60, accompanied by an official from Anwar’s Pakatan Rakyat coalition, said his son, Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, had been used by what he said was “irresponsible quarters” and that statements that both he and his son gave to the press during and after the trial were written by his lawyer and a special officer in Najib’s office. The two were identified as attorney Zamri Idrus, and the special officer, Khairil Annas Jusoh.
Anwar was acquitted of the sodomy charge in a Kuala Lumpur high court in January 2012 although government prosecutors are appealing the case, which has been dubbed Sodomy II. The appeal is to be heard on July 22. Anwar, in 1999 a prospective heir apparent to then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, was originally convicted in Sodomy I after he fell out with Mahathir and served six years in prison in a case that was universally viewed as cooked up to ruin his political career.
“Anwar is innocent and a victim of this slander… as such I apologize to Anwar and his family,” Azlan said in a printed statement. “He and his family have suffered a lot as a result of this slander?I deeply regret all the slander hurled against Anwar, which involved my son Saiful Bukhairi.”
Everything, he said, “was planned in great detail by a special officer in the PM’s Department. Even the script I read during the press conference after Anwar’s sodomy acquittal last year was prepared by this officer.”
His son, he said, “himself has never explained the sodomy incident and the accusation to me. I was never called as a witness in the case. I was never called by any party to offer my statement as the father from the start to the end of the trial.”